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1) trying to find a health study that I’d read about a couple of days ago in the LA Times, associating various lifestyle choices with chronic disease rates.  I searched for: -latimes diet smoking- in the following systems:

Google.com – D : http://www.google.com/search?q=latimes+diet+smoking

Notes – good results from a word match perspective – but completely useless for my needs.

OneRiot.com – F: http://www.oneriot.com/search?q=latimes+diet+smoking

Notes – only one result.  A match, but not what I was looking for

Topsy.com – F : http://topsy.com/search?q=latimes+diet+smoking

Notes – three results, with the same title and description.  Same result as OneRiot, but listed three times.

thisnewz.com – B- : http://thisnewz.com/M/sbeta.php?qn=latimes+diet+smoking&pn=&rn=20

Notes – the study I was looking for showed up, clearly labeled, at #6

Looking for a free online OCR solution: searched for: -free OCR-

Google.com – B : http://www.google.com/search?q=free+OCR

Notes – a mix of sites offering free OCR products, and product summary.  Good results, but I tried the first link and the product was not effective.  Much more research required to find a good candidate.

OneRiot.com – C: http://www.oneriot.com/search?q=free+OCR

Notes – two results – one identical to the lower quality service that was #1 on Google.  The other result matched against “test prep from OCR”.

Topsy.com -C+ : http://topsy.com/search?q=free+OCR

Notes – again, “free-ocr.com” was #1.  Results otherwise similar to Google.

thisnewz.com – A : http://thisnewz.com/M/sbeta.php?qn=free+OCR&pn=&rn=20

Notes – first result was for the OCR test prep company, second result was a summary page, third result was flagged “great free online OCR” – and it was a fantastic product – www.onlineocr.net

Great stuff!  Very exciting to have this be a useful product, even if it’s mostly for me right now!

This blog is an experiment in crowd-sourced feedback.  I’m only doing it because I want to hear what you have to say! 

A little background, then I’ll ask for your input in a poll and through the comments.

I created ThisNewz.com because I’m a news junkie, and fascinated by social networking.  At the core, it’s a real-time search engine focused around breaking news and and topical information.  It’s built with a mix of custom code and open source systems.  The design/layout needs significant work.

On top of this core, there’s a home page with breaking news, a real-time search engine, a trends page, and numerous topic pages.

Traffic comes from a variety of sources: here are the metrics I’m monitoring closely and their trends: numbers are for the previous 7 days, then compared to the prior week

Visits: 4,605 - up 33%

Pages: 5,547 – up 37%

Pages/Visit: 1.20 – up 3%

Bounce rate: 88.40% – down 4%

Time on site: .36 – up 6%

New visitors: 95% – down 2%

So, directionally everything looks good.  However, traffic is highly dependent on a few sources, including Google Search, and they may not be reliable going forward.  Pages per visit is low, so it’s a stop and go experience right now.  I am not yet tracking outbound traffic.

The top page for traffic this week was:

http://thisnewz.com/M/N/ko/kourtney-kardashian.html  (the images on these pages are automatically sourced from flickr, restricted by Creative Commons)

I’ve had a blast pulling this together, and now need to make some decisions as to where to take it:  Here’s the poll – please vote!  I’m really only doing this because I want to hear what you think.

Thank you!  Looking forward to the conversation!